One thing about the oft-told tales of the SR-71 being a “victim”. In those cases, the SRs were flying at the same known altitude at the same known speed, on the same known route with no deviations to either side at all, at a known time (determined by the Blackbirds known launch time when they flew that repeated mission) no maneuvering or attempt to avoid, no countermeasures, etc. With a scenario like that, it’s not surprising that they were “intercepted”.
Not quite, they were on a passing south of Sweden on their way to Russia, turned North, and when they were
getting close to Finland, made a high speed left 180′ turn.
At that speed, the turn radius was immense, so they had to enter Swedish Air Space briefly.
After leaving the Swedish Air Space, they flew south between the islands of Öland and Gotland.
There is a real narrow gap of international waters, and they cannot deviate much without again
violating Swedish Air Space.
The time from passing South of Sweden, to entering the gap between the islands was known, so it was
easy to send a JA-37 Viggen to intercept.
Thus the SR-71 had really no choice.
After showing the USAF that interception was possible, the SR-71s started to slow down to MACH 2,5
in the turn, which allowed them to make the turn without violating Swedish Air Space.
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